


the bow and the bower

by sweetwatersong



Series: the attic [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Robin Hood, F/M, Fic amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5370464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/pseuds/sweetwatersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In a country much like England, King Rogers the Just has vanished while overseas fighting the Red Dead King..."</p><p>The sketch of a potential Robin Hood AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the bow and the bower

**Author's Note:**

> At one point I had the idea for an Avengers Robin Hood AU. I knew the set-up, the character roles, and how the main story would end - but nothing else. (Many kudos to inkvoices for brainstorming with me then!) Two years later, I still don't know more than that. So this outlines what I do have: the synopsis and the nominative ending of the Sherwood story arc. Enjoy!
> 
> Day 5 of 12DoW clean out.
> 
> Warnings: Canon-typical violence and bloodshed.

Synopsis:

In a country much like England, King Rogers the Just has vanished while overseas fighting the Red Dead King. His closest confidante, Sir Barnes, returned alive but has been rumored to have fallen under the influence of the distant and icy Tsardom. Claiming his control over the country was Steven’s last wish, he now contests ceaselessly with the appointed Steward Nicholas Fury for dominion. There is a possibility, however, that there may be no land at all to rule over should the dispute continue. Already the common people feel the impact of affairs that have lapsed into disarray. Many of them believe only King Rogers can restore peace.

That may not be the hopeless wish some take it for. There is one person who may know where the true King is: Bruce Banner, his personal physician and the only survivor of the kidnapping. Yet Banner has no memory of where he was held, or how he escaped. Those secrets are locked within the mind of the Beast, an alter ego birthed during his torture and terror in captivity. And the Beast will treat or talk with no one.

There may not be time to fret over Banner’s sanity, though. Prince Thor, heir to the Northern Realm recently thawed from a long isolation, has arrived in the land. He comes quietly, suspecting that his lost brother may be stirring trouble in their once-peaceful neighbor…

Most of this matters little to Clint Barton, an archer from the Order of the Shield who has returned broken and battered from the crusade against Hydra’s forces. Bruised in body and mind, he seeks only solace among the ancient Sherwood Forest and its behemoth trees familiar from the days of his youth. 

He is not alone there. Refugees fleeing the unrest take shelter under the spreading green boughs, struggling to remain apart from the brewing civil war. Among them are the Lady Natasha Romanoff, the previous Sheriff of Nottingham's foreign bride, and Barney the Crimson, a drunkard brawler who bears an odd loathing for Clint.

Nor is Barton the only companion of King Rogers in Sherwood. Anthony Stark has retreated to Sherwood’s promised peace as well, with little more to his name than the intellect that once brought him riches. His refusal to serve anyone save Steven has rendered him an outcast from the court. Even the need for his weapons in the crusade is not great enough to save him from political intrigue and the threat of death around every corner. Now, accompanied by the incomparable Pepper Potts and a disguised ‘Friar’ Banner, he finds himself on the periphery of the refugees’ attempts to survive.

In the Forest's shadows Barton and Stark alike become one of many scavenging for food and comfort, dispirited and distanced from the troubles of the nobles. That is, until the new Sheriff of Nottingham begins campaigning to clear the so-called rabble out. A fellow recently arrived some two years past and come into the post under strange circumstances, the dark-haired Sheriff has set his sights on higher titles. But as lost as their king and their causes might be, the people of Sherwood will not give up so easily.

In time both the weary archer and the quick-witted inventor find themselves settling in for another battle. Their guidance will lead the refugees to form a band in the Forest's defense, never thinking that their actions could save their nation. Indeed, the fight to save Sherwood may be the first step in stopping the cascade of civil wars and crusades - but it must first be won.

 

Excerpt: 

“He was one of yours,” Natasha said flatly, accusation in her eyes as she held the level gaze of the Steward. Every trace of her foreign accent rang like a death knell for Sherwood’s people.

“He’s still one of mine. The only way to really leave our Order is through death,” Fury replied evenly. “But between handling Barnes’ troops in the west and looking for the King in the east, I don’t have the soldiers to spare for another fight. Not even if it’s to protect civilians.”

She knew he was telling the truth. She had known from the moment she had arrived at the fortress and glimpsed so few watchmen on the ramparts, so few guards on the ground. Whether the Steward and his men cared enough for the innocents to act, they had no resources to do so.

In a country where every battle seemed to revolve around power, there was never enough of it to make a difference.

Natasha looked back at Fury with a tightly controlled expression. She didn’t need to say aloud what both of them knew.

That was it, then; she would return to the forest without even the hope of aid, a whisper of support. She would return to the green boughs that had watched over laughter and heartbreak and the joys of life, and the people who had danced under them would die.

For a moment Natasha allowed herself to wish that she had fallen in love with someone without such an ironclad sense of loyalty. That her heart belonged to someone who would listen to her arguments and leave the refugees to their fates. But the truth of the future had already settled in her bones; indeed, it had been carried there since the final confrontation with the Sheriff’s men became inevitable. She would return to Barton’s side and meet their end together.

It was a small comfort that this death would be better than many she had faced before.

Natasha turned her mare’s head around, feeling the exhausted horse sigh under her, and looked to the long journey back.

“Lady Natasha,” a voice called out from behind her. She turned her head over her shoulder to stare coldly at Fury. He did not rise to her bait. “Stay the night. Get some sleep and rest your mount before she collapses underneath you. I may not be able to help you, but I think I know someone who can.”

*

They weren’t going to make it. Natasha crouched over the foam-slicked neck of her mare, giving her more room to maneuver. The chestnut’s ears were pinned back as she raced over tree roots and loam, more nimble than the heavier warhorses behind her.

They weren’t going to make it in time.

*

“For Sherwood!” Stark cried, lifting his fist in the air while his bay spun underneath him and gave him a full view of the ruinous battlefield. His voice cut over a wild melee of sounds: the ringing of swords on armor, the grunts of dying men and women. The cries of the marauders and the desperation in the refugees’ yells. “Freed people, to me!”

The muscles in his arm burned as he held it up, nails biting into the metal of his gauntlet. He grit his teeth and kept it aloft anyway, heart pounding in his chest. He was not a leader, was decidedly not the man they should have been rallying behind. But if King Rogers wasn’t going to show up and do his goddamn job, Anthony would have to do it for him.

He was going to give Steven a large piece of his mind when they finally got him back from Hydra’s clutches.

An arrow lanced through the air to turn the shout of a marauder charging him into a gurgle. Stark spared a glance for Barton, now hidden in the shadows of the immense trees, and nodded. The archer returned the gesture before he fired again, taking out the eye of a snarling man lurching towards a woman trying to hold her split side together. Anthony urged his bay towards where she lay on the ground as the man fell atop more bodies. If the battered refugees of the forest had a chance of holding out, they needed to pull back together.

“TO ME!” He shouted again, the words tearing at his throat. And finally, first in the ring nearest him then spreading outward like a ripple, the people of Sherwood responded.

That there were too few of them, that even as they struggled to make their way to him they continued to fall, would make no difference now. This would be their last stand, their desperate gamble for more time.

For hope.

Anthony couldn’t tell, as he drew his sword to defend himself against another marauder, if he had the strength to believe that thought.

*

They were close, so close -

Natasha glanced over and met her companion’s eyes, her hair whipping in her face. The look was all that was needed for the foreign prince nodded and returned his sharp blue gaze to the uneven ground ahead of him. Heart in her mouth she did the same, a prayer in her native tongue whispering through her veins.

Let them be in time, let them be in time, let them…

Then they were pouring out of the forest into the blood-soaked clearing, smashing into the mob that lay ahead of them, and swords flashed like bright, blessed hope as Prince Thor’s army laid into the marauders caught unawares.

*

Taken by surprise, the Sheriff’s men did not surrender but fought all the harder: rats caught in a corner with nowhere to run, they made every inch a bloody one and scrambled for safety. Death continued to seep into the trampled ground as Prince Thor and his men pressed inexorably forward, warhorses dancing nimbly over the corpses of Sherwood and Sheriff fighters alike.

The Sherwood refugees revived at the appearance of allies, rallying with the vigor of new hope in their hearts. It still took Natasha long and grueling minutes to make her way across the battlefield to Clint, cutting down those who thought a boyish fighter would be an easy target. By the time she reached the massive oak shading his perch he had abandoned his empty quivers and was fighting with knife and bow, blood spattered across his face and his fighting leathers soaked. 

One last foe, dispatched with her sword in his back; one last marauder, taking Clint’s dagger between his ribs. One last man, and then nothing stood between them.

In that moment rose the sound of horns, bright and triumphant, and their message was that of the surrender of the Sheriff’s men. The Northern Realms force sent up a cheer raggedly echoed by the surviving Sherwood fighters. It carried over the diminishing sounds of the battlefield, the marauders laying down their weapons at sword- or arrow-point. Anthony called out words she couldn’t make out to Prince Thor, both men encircled by their people.

In the shadows where they belonged, Natasha sheathed her sword and slipped off her mare into Clint’s embrace.

“You’re alive,” she whispered as his fingers cupped her face, leaving bloody prints. He kissed her in answer, her hands knotting reins and fighting leathers together, the taut cord of his bowstring caught between them. They had made it in time.

Against all odds, they had won.

*

It would only be the first of the battles to come.


End file.
